


T4 & A1

by thudworm



Series: Tony Stark Bingo 2019 [15]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bad Puns, Gen, Justin Hammer is a dick, Kidnapping, post WS/pre Ultron
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-25
Updated: 2019-08-25
Packaged: 2020-09-26 02:54:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20382493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thudworm/pseuds/thudworm
Summary: Hammer is up to something, which means it's the Avengers job to stop him.





	1. T4- [Image from IM3- Tony zip-tied to a bed-frame]

This was, in a word, humiliating.

Tony had been outsmarting kidnappers since he was 6, but here he was. Tied to a bed frame with zip ties, pretending he was helpless. All in the name of baiting Justin fucking Hammer into revealing the true mastermind behind his latest scheme. There was no way the idea was actually Hammer’s brainchild- it actually had a chance of success, and Hammer was, well, dumber than a bag of hammers. 

JARVIS had been the one to notice the irregularities in the latest weapon specs Hammer Industries had been sending out on bids for new contracts. Since SHIELD wasn’t exactly on the scene any longer, it fell to the Avengers to investigate where Hammer was getting his design ideas from and shut down anything that wasn’t 110% above board. 

Steve had suggested Tony be the one to go undercover (at least, as undercover as he could given his reputation). Tony had protested the plan, his will to live was inversely related to his proximity to Hammer, but he hadn’t been able to convince the others to try something different. 

“I think this is the best option to start with,” Natasha had said.

“Dude’s got a hate-on for you a mile wide. There’s no way he doesn’t take the chance to gloat at you about how much smarter he thinks he is,” Clint had pointed out, and Tony really wasn’t able to argue with that. 

Which was how he ended up being ‘kidnapped’ by a squad of goons after news that he would be giving a speech at a local college was ‘leaked'. Tony and JARVIS had left an obvious trail of looking into Hammer’s business but not actually finding anything, because if there was one thing he wouldn’t be able to resist, it was the chance to feel like he had gotten one over on Tony. 

If it had been a real kidnapping attempt Tony would have been more than capable of escaping when they bundled him into the back of a waiting van without even checking his pockets for tools, but since it had been part of the plan, he just had to play along and pretend to struggle. 

They had driven him around in circles for a bit in a half-assed attempt at disorienting him, or throwing off anyone who might have been following them; but, after Afghanistan, Tony had been determined to never be unfindable ever again, so the trackers he had implanted in several places meant the team were monitoring his exact location the entire time. 

The kidnappers were either incompetent or just didn’t give a damn about how to lead a blindfolded person, which meant Tony almost tripped several times and whacked his head on something he couldn’t see. The small amount of sympathy he might have been able to feel for what was going to happen to these guys when the rest of the Avengers turned up evaporated. 

They left him there to hang for what seemed like forever before he heard the voice of his least favourite person on earth. “Oh, Anthony. You just couldn’t leave well enough alone, could you?”

“You know me- nothing makes me happier than stopping you each time you come up with some harebrained scheme. What is it this time?”

“Oh, Anthony. Always such a kidder.”

Well, it wasn’t like he had really expected Hammer to make things that easy, but it had been worth the try. 

“No. You think you can just waltz on in here, and steal all my top secret information, but you can’t. Iron Man thinks he’s so far above everybody else, nobody could possibly be better than him at anything!”

Hammer had escalated from talking to shouting to screaming by the end of his little rant, and for the first time Tony wondered if Hammer had finally gone off the deep end. The man had always been a big deluded, especially about his own abilities, but this level of frothing rage was new. Clearly the few years he'd spent in prison hadn’t done much for his mental stability.

Hammer continued complaining at the top of his lungs, but it was mostly repeating the same few things over and over. There was a mention or two of some new partnership that would help Hammer finally beat Tony, but nothing solid they could use. 

This was going nowhere. Hammer was too busy venting about how much he hated Tony to reveal anything useful, no matter how Tony tried to push for details. He was going to have to give the signal to tap out, because as much as he hated leaving a job unfinished this was clearly just a waste of time. 

The tracker in his right palm could be activated one handed by tapping it in a specific rhythm, precisely because of situations like this, where he was tied up without an easy way free of his bonds. 

He set off the alert, and from there it was all over. The Avengers wasted no time in busting down the door and subduing Hammer’s hired goons. 

Hammer had started running at the first sign of trouble; and, although it would have been no difficulty to take him down and include him in the group handcuffed together, Tony called Natasha off. “Let him go. We don’t have what we need from him, but if he thinks he’s managed to outsmart us and escape we might get a second chance. Come on, someone hurry up and get me down off of this stupid thing. My shoulders are killing me.”

Clint was the closest to him, which was unfortunate because he never could resist the chance to be snarky.

“This is what happens when civilians get sent undercover,” he said in Natasha’s direction and fake sighed dramatically. “Now someone else will just have to do it all again.”


	2. A1- Damsels (And Others) In Distress

“Why do I have to be the damsel in distress this time?” Clint whined, but Tony felt no sympathy for him. 

“Because Hammer hates me too much to spill the beans, which means the same probably goes for Natasha. No one would believe it if they succeeded in taking down Cap or Thor too easily- even Hammer could figure out it was a trap. Bruce’s big green machine has the same issue, no way they risk it. Which leaves you or Sam, but it’d be rude of us to make him play bait on his first proper mission as an Avenger,” Tony replied. 

“And you were on the front page last week for knocking yourself out with your own damn bow, don’t forget that,” Natasha added. 

Clint had pouted and whined, but it was mostly for show. Everyone knew he’d had much worse missions in the past, even though a picture of Hammer wouldn’t be out of place under the entry for ‘torture’ in a dictionary. 

They waited a week before staging the scene for Clint to be nabbed, even Hammer wasn’t enough of an idiot to be suspicious if it was too easy too soon. Now the rest of the Avengers were in position outside of the same warehouse Tony had been held in, waiting for Hammer to give them the info they needed before they could take him down, hopefully for good this time. 

“Hawkeye, can I call you Clint?” Hammer asked. Clint’s reply of “I’d rather you didn’t,” was hard to hear over the sound of Hammer continuing on without giving him a chance to actually answer. 

“We’re a lot alike, you and I. No one appreciates all our hard work, they’re all too busy looking down on us. Everyone just sees us a joke, and it’s not fair. It’s not right. But if you come and work for me instead, we can show them all. Make them regret treating us like crap.” Hammer was getting more and more strident as he went on, venting about how unfair to him the whole world was. 

“Is Hammer seriously giving Clint the ‘join me and together we can rule the world’ speech,” Tony complained, which had several people telling him to ‘shut up on the comms’ at once. 

“Clint, play along for now. It’s our best bet to get him to spill the beans,” Cap instructed. 

“Maybe you have a point,” Clint pretended to concede. “Maybe I am looking for someone who recognises just what I can do. Let’s say I am interested in teaming up with you. What would I be doing, and what’s in it for me?” 

“Let’s just say that there are more than a couple of people out there who were very interested in helping me destroy everything Tony Stark has ever tried to build. And if you were to use your… unique access inside of Stark Tower to bring me information? I can give you anything you want.”

“Names. If I do this I need to know who I’m in with,” Clint demanded. Tony held his breath, he’d made quite a few enemies over the years and there were a lot of potential names on the list of people who were willing to team up with Hammer if it meant getting back at him. 

Hammer rattled off a few names, and Tony breathed a sigh of relief. He knew about every one of those enemies, and he supposed he had earned their ire, in a twisted ‘villain logic’ way. Most had been fired from SI for things like corporate espionage, or grossly violating safety standards. 

“Okay, I think that's all we need, team,” Cap called over the comms. “Standard extraction and containment plan, let’s go!”

It was short work to round up batch two of Hammer’s goons, and Hammer himself this time, but that didn’t stop Clint complaining about being tied to the chair until they were done. 

“Quit whining,” Tony told him. “You can just sit there and let us do all the hard work, it’s not like they had you strung up by your wrists.” 

“You’re just pissed I was the one who got him to spill after he was too busy ranting at you. Hah! Hammer was Stark raving mad at you!”

There was a round of groans over the comms, no one else on the team appreciated puns quite the way Tony did, but only if they were good ones.

“That was a terrible pun, and unoriginal too. I give it two out of ten, and that’s being generous.”

“Is that another dollar for the Pun Jar?” Natasha asked, which meant it was Clint’s turn to groan. 

“It’s not fair,” he complained. “I’m beginning to think you’re using that for every pun, not just the ones you think are bad.”

“That's not true,” Bruce chipped in. 

“How about this one- normally you hammer a nail, but today we nailed Hammer.” Tony said. 

There was a scattering of laughs from some of the team before the verdict. 

“I’ll allow it,” Cap said, and Tony raised his hands in victory. 

“The difference in quality between those two puns sure was Stark,” Bruce added, setting off another round of groans, and a demand from Clint that he had to contribute to the jar as well. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With thanks to newnewyorker93 on the TSB discord for coming up with that final pun


End file.
